


For You and You Alone

by lionheartedghost



Series: It Will Always Be Yours [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Braime - Freeform, Brienne of Tarth is perfect, F/M, Fluff, Jaime Lannister Needs a Hug, Sansa ships it, This was angstier than I intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 11:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19227835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionheartedghost/pseuds/lionheartedghost
Summary: “You are a good man, Jaime Lannister... You came north at risk to your own life to stand with the living. You defended Eddard Stark’s home with steel from his sword. You deserve your title, and you deserve your blade.”Jaime doesn't believe himself worthy of his knighthood, or of the newly improved Widow's Wail. Brienne is determined to convince him that, despite his doubts, he is a good man.Follow-up to 'It Will Always Be Yours'.Prompt fill for abbyli.





	For You and You Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abbyli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbyli/gifts).



> This follows on from the events of 'It Will Always Be Yours', where Widow's Wail is damaged and Brienne asks Gendry to mend the hilt and make it reminiscent of House Tarth.
> 
> This is another prompt fill for abbyli. Thank you so much for sending me the best prompts; I have such a great time writing them!
> 
> This got angstier than I intended but it's all happy in the end!

Jaime had been distant since the battle. It had taken her a while to notice, to see past the crooked grin fixed into place, to hear through the teasing edge in his voice, but once she had, she couldn’t help but see it. The green of his eyes wasn’t quite as bright. His laugh wasn’t quite as real. When he thought he couldn’t be seen, the grin he wore would fade. She watched him from the corner of her eye as he joked with his brother, saw how his smile faltered as he glanced away, only for it to redouble when he caught her looking. She smiled unconvincingly back at him; she hadn’t mastered the look quite as well as he had learnt to.  
  
She’d tried to broach the matter with him, but he always found a way to avoid answering her. She had tried to ask him late one night as she studied his face in the dwindling light of the fire, but he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her until every thought had left her mind. She had tried to raise the question after dinner one night, but he had spotted Ser Davos across the room and waved him over to join them. She’d even tried to catch him by the arm in the courtyard, but he’d neatly dodged her hand, smirked at her as he spotted Podrick sparring below, bet her he could beat her squire right here and now, she would see. He had in the end, albeit barely, but Podrick had insisted on another attempt to win, and she had forsaken her attempt to question him.  
  
It wasn’t until she watched Jaime carefully unbuckle his sword belt before climbing into bed that she realised. He had been distant since the battle, it was true, but she’d only begun to notice after she had asked Gendry Baratheon to mend Widow’s Wail. She remembered the look in Jaime’s eyes as she had handed him the sword, remembered how his voice had broken. _I don’t deserve…_ he’d begun, before the words had died away. She’d convinced him to keep it. _It will always be yours_. But that was when the look in his eyes had first made itself known to her.  
  
She wanted to ask him, then and there, if that was what it was. He was good enough. He was a good man. He knew that, didn’t he? She tried to find the words for him, but they wouldn’t form on her tongue. He kissed her forehead and pulled the furs up to keep out the chill, his eyes falling closed as his head found the pillows. She didn’t have the heart to ask him then. Instead, she lay on her side and watched as he fell asleep.  
  
She cornered him, finally, in the godswood. He sat in the snow at the foot of the Weirwood tree, his hand resting on Widow’s Wail’s glistening silver hilt.  
  
“I didn’t think House Lannister kept the old gods,” she said, slowing her pace as she reached him. He looked up at her voice and forced a smile.  
  
“We can never know who’s listening. Best take my chances with them all.”  
  
“Is that what you’re doing out here?” She asked. “Praying?”  
  
“Freezing,” he replied. His smile wavered. “Thinking.”  
  
“You’ve been doing that a lot.”  
  
He scoffed. “Makes a change for the stupidest Lannister.”  
  
“Don’t say that.” She sat down next to him carefully. “What have you been thinking?”  
  
Jaime fell silent. He ran his fingers over the sapphire glistening on his sword’s hilt.  
  
“You’ve been quiet since the battle,” she pressed gently. “More so since I asked Gendry to mend Widow’s Wail.”  
  
“Widow’s Wail.” Jaime’s smile twisted into a grimace. “What sort of a knight would wield a sword with such an unsavoury name?”  
  
“You didn’t name it.”  
  
“No, but I didn’t have to use it at all. I could have left it in a tomb until everything it stands for had been forgotten. But I took it.”  
  
“It would have been a waste of Valyrian steel had you left it to gather dust,” she reasoned. “You’ve used it for good. You protected Winterfell from the dead with it. It’s only right that the two halves of Eddard Stark’s sword should find their way back here.”  
  
Jaime shook his head. “Maybe. But it should have been in the hands of someone worthier. I didn’t deserve it then. I don’t deserve it now. I…” he looked across at her, his jaw set. “I was a deplorable knight, and a poor excuse for a man. The things I did…”  
  
“You saved King’s Landing from the Mad King,” she reminded him. “That doesn’t sound like something a deplorable knight would do.”  
  
“I stood by my sister’s side for years,” he argued. “I was blind to injustice. I fought for her without question. These soldiers barely survived the battle against the dead, and now they’re expected to march south against Cersei. She holds King’s Landing. I could have stopped her before I left, I could have done something, but I left it for other men to fix what I wouldn’t.”  
  
“You couldn’t have stopped her.” Brienne reached forward to cup his cheek in her hand. “You are a good man, Jaime Lannister. Loyalty got the better of you. You were a good knight when you saved King’s Landing, and you are a remarkable knight now. You came north at risk to your own life to stand with the living. You defended Eddard Stark’s home with steel from his sword. You deserve your title, and you deserve your blade.”  
  
Jaime glanced away from the blue of her eyes.  
  
“You can’t be rid of the man you used to be, no matter how ashamed you are of him,” she chose her words slowly, deliberately, “but you can start again, here in the North. You can be the knight you want to be. This can be your second chance.”  
  
He raised his eyebrows skeptically. “How do you propose I go about such a thing?”  
  
“First of all,” she leant closer to him until his eyes found hers again, “we rename the sword.”  
  
He stared at her, his mouth slightly agape. His lips quirked into a tired smile.  
  
“We rename the sword,” he repeated, enunciating each word tentatively as if they might spring forth and gain a life of their own.  
  
“You were right. Widow’s Wail is a horrifically unsavoury name.” She took her hand from his face and reached to take the blade from its sheath; he let her. She turned it over in her hands, admiring the delicacy of the detailing on the hilt, the crescent moons that shone up at her, the way the silver sparkled as it caught the winter sunlight. “Gendry is an excellent craftsman.”  
  
“You’d never know it was a Lannister sword,” Jaime agreed. “It’s Tarth, through and through.”  
  
“Tarth will be proud to have such an honourable knight wielding its colours.” She handed the sword back to him. He smiled, tilting the blade slowly back and forth, watching the light dance along its edge.  
  
“If these are House Tarth’s colours, then it’s House Tarth’s honour I hold at stake.” He looked up at her. “That would compel me to only act as House Tarth’s representatives would deem just.”  
  
“You are just, Ser Jaime.”  
  
“Nevertheless,” he dropped his gaze to the sapphire set in the silver, “I will wield Evenstar only as I believe you would wish me to.”  
  
“Evenstar?”  
  
“The Evenstar protects Tarth,” Jaime ran his thumb along the metal. “You will be the Evenstar one day, and you would never let me act dishonourably. Perhaps if my sword bears that title you’ll guide my hand.”  
  
She rested her hand atop his on Evenstar’s hilt. “You don’t need me to guide you.”  
  
“Maybe not,” he managed a half-grin, “but I rather like the idea of always having you with me.”  
  
_I mean to always be with you anyway,_ she thought, but she settled instead for squeezing his hand in reply.  
  
Jaime tucked the sword under his arm and stood, helping Brienne to her feet. “Is this how it begins, Ser Brienne? Ser Jaime’s second chance to do right with Evenstar on his hip?”  
  
“Almost.” She took it from him again. “There’s one more thing we should do.”  
  
“Oh?” He crooked his head to the side with bemusement. “What do you suggest?”  
  
“You aren’t proud of the knight you were,” she spun his sword absently in her fingers. “The knight who served King’s Landing, who served Cersei.”  
  
A shadow flickered across his face.  
  
“You were noble even then,” she continued, “even if you don’t see it. But this is your second chance. We should knight you again.”  
  
He blinked at her. “Brienne…”  
  
“I know it won’t mean anything in anyone else’s eyes,” she interrupted. “You’ll still be the knight Ser Arthur Dayne made you, and rightly so. But this isn’t about Ser Arthur. It isn’t about anyone but you. This is for you and you alone.”  
  
Jaime swallowed. She watched him as he floundered for words, his lips parting as he searched in vain for them; no sound came. He glanced up at the deep red leaves of the Weirwood tree, and a startled laugh burst forth.  
  
“If my father could see me now,” he said at last with a shake of his head. “In the godswood of Winterfell, cursing my house with a Tarth sword.” He met her eyes again. “You don’t have to do this for me.”  
  
“I’d be honoured to, if you’ll permit me. Will you?”  
  
He was still for a moment. Then, so minutely that she almost missed it, he nodded.  
  
Brienne adjusted her grip on Evenstar’s hilt, raised the sword, and stared down the blade into the green of his eyes. “Kneel, Jaime.”  
  
With all the grace she had come to expect from him, Jaime lowered himself to his knees.  
  
Brienne rested the tip of Evenstar on Jaime’s shoulder; he tensed, his fingers curling into a nervous fist at his side.  
  
“In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave.” He was brave, he had always been brave. No man without courage would leave the queen he was sworn to serve to ride towards an army of the dead.  
  
“In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just.” He had sent her to find Sansa Stark equipped with a valyrian steel sword of her own. He had granted her leave to try to reason with the Blackfish at Riverrun. He had never been anything but just to her.  
  
“In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent.” Half a million lives in King’s Landing saved by a boy forced to kill his own king. Millions more no longer at the mercy of the dead, defeated by an army he had fought for.  
  
“Arise, Ser Jaime, a knight of the seven kingdoms.”  
  
Jaime rose to his feet, his gaze fixed on the ground, blinking quickly. His eyes still shone as he raised his head to look at her, biting back a smile.  
  
There was muted applause from behind them, the sound muffled by the leather of fine gloves. Sansa Stark stepped forward through the trees.  
  
“My lady.” Brienne’s face flushed red. Flustered, she bowed awkwardly at the waist. Jaime, still lost in reverie, took a moment to realise that he should emulate her.  
  
“Please,” Sansa held out a hand, her features twisting briefly into a grimace, “you don’t need to bow to me here. I’m sorry to have disturbed you; I didn’t expect to come across anyone.”  
  
“Not at all, my lady,” Jaime found his voice. “Might we be of service? Was there something you required?”  
  
Sansa looked pointedly at the Weirdwood tree, a polite smile on her lips.  
  
“Oh.” Jaime turned his head to survey the godswood around them, as if he had forgotten his surroundings entirely until that moment. “Yes. Of course.”  
  
“We’ll take our leave, my lady,” Brienne started to bow again. She stopped herself at the glint in Sansa’s eyes, nodding her head politely instead. Brienne handed Evenstar back to Jaime, waited for him to return it to its sheath, and turned to leave. Jaime moved to follow her.  
  
“Ser Jaime.” Sansa’s words stopped him in the snow where he stood.  
  
“My lady?”  
  
“I believe my congratulations are owed.” She clasped her hands together in front of her. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard tell of a second knighting, but I’m happy for you. Whether you choose to fight for the North, or for Tarth, or simply for…” her eyes flitted to where Brienne waited patiently. “Whomever you pledge your sword to, Ser Jaime, Winterfell is grateful for your service.”  
  
Jaime inclined his head. “Thank you, my lady.”  
  
Sansa watched as Brienne and Jaime left the godswood, so close to one another that their hands brushed. She knelt in the snow at the foot of the great tree and closed her eyes. She asked the old gods for a great deal, she knew. For victory for the North against Cersei Lannister. For peace for her people. But for as long as Winterfell was under the protection of the first lady knight and a Lannister fighting under House Tarth’s colours, she had no need to pray for safety. No harm could befall them while the two halves of Ned Stark’s sword fought side by side.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave kudos/a comment if you enjoyed it!


End file.
